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Otto Telschow

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"Gauleiter Telschow" redirects here. For thevorpostenboot,seeGerman trawler V 209 Gauleiter Telschow.
For the fishing trawler in service 1933-34, seeFV Otto Telschow.
Otto Telschow
GauleiterofGau Eastern Hanover
In office
1 October 1928 – 8 May 1945
Appointed byAdolf Hitler
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byPosition abolished
Gauleiterof Gau Lüneburg-Stade
In office
15 July 1925 – 1 October 1928
Appointed byAdolf Hitler
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byPosition abolished
Personal details
Born(1876-02-27)27 February 1876
Wittenberge,Province of Brandenburg,
Kingdom of Prussia,German Empire
Died31 May 1945(1945-05-31)(aged 69)
Lüneburg,Allied-occupied Germany
Cause of deathSuicide
Political partyNazi Party
Other political
affiliations		German Social Party
German Völkisch Freedom Party
OccupationPolice Administrator
Military service
AllegianceGerman Empire
Branch/serviceImperial German Army
Years of service1914–1919
Battles/warsWorld War I
AwardsIron Cross,2nd class

Otto Telschow(27 February 1876 – 31 May 1945) was aGermanNazi Partyofficial who served asGauleiterinEastern Hanoverfrom 1925 to 1945.

Early years

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Telschow was born inWittenberge,the son of a judicial officer. Until 1893 he was a student at the Royal Prussian boys’ military education institute inAnnaburg.Trained as acavalryman,he served until 1897 with the 11th (2nd Brandenburg)UhlanRegiment inSaarburgand from 1898 to 1902 with the 15th (Hannover)HussarsRegiment ( "Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands" ) inWandsbek,attaining the rank of sergeant.[1]

In 1902 he resigned from the military and became an administrativepoliceofficial inHamburg.Telschow joined theanti-SemiticGerman Social Partyin 1905. He served with the police until the beginning of theFirst World War.He was drafted as a field hospital inspector and served from 1914 to 1917 on the front lines inFlanders,Romaniaand theBaltic States,earning theIron Cross,2nd class. From the end of 1917 to the end of 1918 he worked as a hospital chief inspector in Reserve Hospital III inBremen.[2]

After the war, he resumed his police career, working from 1919 to 1924 as an administrative officer in the Hamburg police department. He was dismissed from the police in March 1924 because of his activities as district leader of the radicallyvölkischand anti-SemiticGerman Völkisch Freedom Party(DVFP) in theHarburgdistrict. From 1924 to July 1925 he was the leader of the DVFP inLüneburgandStade,the two easternRegierungsbezirke(government districts) of the PrussianProvince of Hanover.He was also a member of the GermanDeutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund,the largest and most active anti-Semitic federation in Germany.[3]

Nazi career

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When the ban that had been imposed on the Nazi Party in the wake of the failedBeer Hall Putschwas lifted and the Party was re-founded on 27 February 1925, Telschow was charged with organizing the Party in Lüneburg and Stade. In June 1925 he founded anOrtsgruppe(Local District) inBuchholz,the first Nazi local organization in northern Lower Saxony. Telschow formally joined the Nazi Party in July (membership number 7,057) and on 15 JulyAdolf Hitlerformally named himGauleiterof Gau Lüneburg-Stade.[4]

On 10 September 1925, Telschow joined theNational Socialist Working Association,headed byGregor Strasser.This was an association of northern and northwesternGauleiterswho supported the "revolutionary" left wing of the Party (as opposed to the more moderate wing that advocated participation in electoral campaigns) until it was dissolved in 1926 following theBamberg Conference.[5]

On 20 May 1928, Telschow was defeated in his first bid to be elected to theReichstagand to thePrussian Landtag.On 1 October 1928, Telschow's Gau was renamedGau Eastern Hanoverand he was retained asGauleiter,serving until the end of the Nazi regime in May 1945. Also in October 1928, Telschow founded the weekly Nazi newspaperNiedersachsen-Stürmer(The Lower Saxon Stormer) which he published until May 1945. He also often gave speeches against Jews, Freemasons and Communists. In November 1929 he was elected to the Hanover ProvincialLandtag.In September 1930 he was elected to theReichstagfor electoral constituency 15, Eastern Hanover, and remained a member until May 1945.[6]

After theNazi seizure of power,Telschow was named president of the provincialLandtagin April 1933. On 10 April he was appointed a member of thePrussian State Council.He was retained as a member when it was reconstituted by PrussianMinisterpräsidentHermann Göringas anadvisory bodyand convened on 15 September 1933. In 1934 he was made a Prussian Provincial Councilor for the Province of Hanover, and in September 1935 he was named to theAcademy for German Law.After the outbreak of theSecond World War,Telschow served as a member of the Defense Committee forWehrkreis(Military District) XI from 22 September 1939. On 15 November 1940, he was made the Gau Housing Commissioner for his jurisdiction, and on 16 May 1941 he was charged with all municipal construction for the city ofLüneburg.[7]

Unlike most otherGauleiters,Telschow was not a member of either theSAor theSS.One of the olderGauleiters,and not particularly ambitious or capable, Telschow often turned over the day-to-day running of his Gau to his Deputy,Heinrich Peper.[8]In the postwar memoir byAlbert Krebs,the formerGauleiterofHamburg,Telschow was characterized in this way:

On his frequent visits to our headquarters, we usually tried to compliment him out the door as quickly as possible because he kept us from working and also had nothing particularly clever to contribute to a conversation... a man of undoubtedly honest intentions but not equipped with any noteworthy abilities… he knew nothing about the interconnections, background, and effective forces of politics or history.[9]

In addition, complaints began to surface concerning multiple allegations of womanizing by Telschow. An investigation byWalter Buch’sOberste Parteigericht(Supreme Party Court) recommended the opening of formal proceedings against him. However, in December 1941, this was quashed due to the intervention ofMartin Bormannwho was familiar with Hitler's reluctance to discipline or remove anyAlter Kämpfer(old fighter) that had been with him from the earliest days.[10]

When on 16 November 1942 the jurisdiction of theReich Defense Commissionerswas changed from theWehrkreisto the Gau level, Telschow was appointed to this position for his Gau. In this capacity, he had jurisdiction overcivil defenseand evacuation measures, as well as control over the war economy, includingrationingand suppression ofblack marketactivities.[11]

Arrest and suicide

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Toward the close of the war, when British troops entered Lüneburg on 18 April 1945, Telschow fled from his villa to a hunting lodge nearDahlenburg.There he was arrested by British soldiers. He attempted suicide by slashing his wrists and ingesting poison while being transported back to Lüneburg, where he died on 31 May 1945.[12]

References

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  1. ^Höffkes 1986,p. 342.
  2. ^Höffkes 1986,p. 342–343.
  3. ^Höffkes 1986,p. 343.
  4. ^Miller & Schulz 2021,pp. 428–429.
  5. ^Orlow 1969,pp. 66–70.
  6. ^Miller & Schulz 2021,pp. 429–430.
  7. ^Miller & Schulz 2021,p. 430.
  8. ^Miller & Schulz 2021,p. 429.
  9. ^Krebs 1976,pp. 309–310.
  10. ^Miller & Schulz 2021,pp. 430–431.
  11. ^Miller & Schulz 2021,p. 431.
  12. ^Höffkes 1986,p. 344.

Sources

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  • Höffkes, Karl (1986).Hitlers Politische Generale. Die Gauleiter des Dritten Reiches: ein biographisches Nachschlagewerk.Tübingen: Grabert-Verlag.ISBN3-87847-163-7.
  • Klee, Ernst (2005).Das Personen-Lexikon zum Dritten Reich.Frankfurt-am-Main: Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag.ISBN978-3-596-16048-8.
  • Krebs, Albert (1976).The Infancy of Nazism: The Memoirs of Ex-Gauleiter Albert Krebs, 1923-1933.New Viewpoints.ISBN978-0-531-05376-8.
  • Miller, Michael D.; Schulz, Andreas (2021).Gauleiter: The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and Their Deputies, 1925 - 1945.Vol. 3 (Fritz Sauckel - Hans Zimmermann). Fonthill Media.ISBN978-1-781-55826-3.
  • Orlow, Dietrich (1969).The History of the Nazi Party: 1919-1933.University of Pittsburgh Press.ISBN0-8229-3183-4.
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